In a note to readers at the start of Blue Opening, poet Chet'la Sebree explains that "this collection, which emerged like life from the ether, is for those who, too, scramble and search, who dive into the unknown." Sebree's powerful collection plumbs those depths, each poem an exploration of how things emerge from the unknown, of origins and roots and beginnings. The book's three sections all open with a numbered poem titled "Root Logic," each one an etymological examination of a word: womb, breast, and brain. Though each is a distinct piece, the numbering makes them feel like linked stanzas, uniting the book across their shared form and structure.
Sebree makes creative use of numbering throughout, as seen in "Five Facts About Lupus," where each page features numbered, brief stanzas. In addition to this fragmentation, the poem is further destabilized by its sequence: the predictable (1, followed by 2, followed by 2a) supplanted by the unexpected, where 2a is followed by 1a, and 2d & e chases after 3. The numbering in "Genesis"--Sebree calls it "a heroic sonnet crown in prose blocks"--is straightforward, but the numbers are large, like drop caps at the start of each block, and each section is peppered with superscript numerals linking the reader to footnotes. The structure holds a lush tapestry of ideas, from matters of faith and family to the loss and shame caused by and felt in a mortal body. This level of care, of attention to the way design and content overlap to create meaning, is what sets Sebree's collection apart, asking readers to give it the same level of careful attention.
The poems revel in a raw physicality, as in the prose poem "Home Remedy" which dances between alliterative phrasing and a gritty reality: "A keratin cord curls itself between pubic hairs still damp from the shower--a single comma curdling out." Or in "Begin Again," a poem that blends all the themes of Sebree's work: origins and motherhood and the ways the spiritual both unites and conflicts with the body: "The beginning makes as much sense as/ how spermed egg begets infant: ab ovo, or/ from the beginning, or from the egg, but// what about atom and Adam? Both singularities/ desperate for collision. Molecule made rib made/ sheathed structure he could fit in." With her kinetic idea-play and word work, Sebree invites readers to join her, awestruck at all the unknowable wonders and griefs of being human. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian
Shelf Talker: Poet Chet'la Sebree's collection offers a dense but light-filled examination of faith and desire and grief, all the unknowable wonders of being human.